Mountain Man's Christmas Surprise: A Small Town Single Daddy Romance (Mountain Men of Liberty Book 16) by K.C. Crowne

Author:K.C. Crowne [Crowne, K.C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-12-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Logan

Nate didn’t come the following day or the next. He let us stew in our fearful anticipation.

Irene wouldn’t stop apologizing the night we came home from the contest. She was a shaky, tearful, apologetic mess.

I wanted nothing more than to cup her face, hold her, tell her it was not her fault. That judge was biased from the start and probably wouldn’t know how brilliant her food was even if it bit him in the ass.

I hated seeing her like this. Mopey and blue. It wasn’t like her at all. My ray of sunshine was now a storm cloud, one that hadn’t uttered a word in days.

“We’ll figure something out,” I promised. “I put way too much pressure on you. That wasn’t fair. This was my problem to start with, and I should have dealt with it myself.”

No response. Irene sat on the couch, cradling Lily to her body.

“I’ll get a loan,” I said, speaking even though I wasn’t sure if she was even listening. “He wants to run off to Mexico. I’m sure a couple grand will give him a head start. He doesn’t need a full ten-K. I’ve got a bit saved. Maybe it’ll be enough to appease him and get him out of my hair.”

“It won’t work,” she mumbled. Her voice was hoarse.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because your brother is a manipulative dickhead. It starts off as a couple hundred, then a thousand, and then the next thing you know he’s squandered your life savings because you’ve set the precedent that he can walk all over you.” Her words were harsh and cruel. “We need to come clean. Call the police. Have him arrested.”

“But he’ll tell the judge—”

“Let him,” Irene snapped. “Nate is a violent maniac, Logan. A guy like that can’t be reasoned with. He’s already hurt you before. What’s to stop him from taking things further?”

“He wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that.” Irene shifted in her seat, staring ahead bitterly. “Nate’s a child-abandoning, abusive criminal. He needs to be behind bars. If he tells the judge the truth, let him. No one’s going to believe a word he says.”

“It’s not that easy. They’ll take Lily away to live with her grandmother. I don’t know when or if I’d ever see her again.”

Irene kissed my niece on the forehead. “Her immediate safety comes first; don’t you understand that? When Nate shows up, you need to turn him in.”

“There has to be a way—”

“For fuck’s sake, Logan,” she hissed. I’d never heard her use language like that before. “You’re enabling him. I hope you realize that. If you give him what he wants —whether it’s ten thousand dollars or the spare change in your pocket— he’ll just come back for more. He’ll keep pushing and pushing to see what he can get away with until you have zero left. Trust me. My father did that to my mother for years, and then to my brothers and me until we had enough of his shit. We let it go on and on because we thought the next time would be different, that he’d change.

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